


Mock Olive

by Nasserwraith



Series: A Fool's Gold [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Feels, Bottom Victor Nikiforov, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Falling In Love, Fluff and Smut, Ice Skating, M/M, Past Abuse, Romance, Top Katsuki Yuuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:00:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27084511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nasserwraith/pseuds/Nasserwraith
Summary: They've only just become lovers, but Yuuri still feels the chasm that lies between himself and Victor. He's anxious and second-guessing everything, but that's nothing new. How can he reach Victor in a way that he'll understand? How can he finally tell him all the things he's been meaning to? Maybe it's time to learn to speak his language. (Romance Erotica, Rated E for a reason).
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri & Victor Nikiforov, Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Series: A Fool's Gold [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937818
Comments: 8
Kudos: 117





	1. Mock Olive - Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> (I realize that the timeline for A Fool’s Gold might feel a bit nebulous here, but for those curious, Mock Cherry, Orange, and Olive take place between episodes 4 and 5. Yuuri hasn’t yet skated in the All-Japan Figure Skating Qualifying Championships nor has he yet announced his Grand Prix program theme, “Love.” His canonical, if off-screen, romantic relationship with Victor has also only just begun. Oh, and angst. Because. - Nas)

**PART I**

In the end, Yuuri had to admit that his family managed to take the news rather well, all things considered. His mother had paid homage to her usual worries, with plenty of _are you sure’s_ and a few _you’re so young’s_ but once she was certain that her son hadn’t been coerced and that Victor was genuine in his expressions of affection, that’s all there was to it. She did, however, continue to give Victor curious sideways looks from time to time, to which, if the other man even noticed, he said nothing about it. Yuuri’s father said even less, and merely made a passing comment about keeping the noise down and not disturbing the neighbors. A beet-red Yuuri immediately agreed while a cheerfully oblivious Victor was happily accepting a second helping of yakizakana and tsukemono (grilled fish and pickles) with his tea at breakfast.

From there, they’d spent the rest of the day working in Ice Castle Hasetsu. Having lost at the Nationals, Yuuri would need a strong showing at the Qualifier to regain his position and be eligible for the Grand Prix Final. As such, Victor was clearly keen on refining the technical parts of his program, focusing on jumps and step sequences that would most effectively show off Yuuri’s agility and artistry. Unfortunately, much to his coach’s growing chagrin, Yuuri also remained terribly distracted. After sharing the night they’d just had, he wanted to talk to his…lover? But he couldn’t think of what to say. He didn’t have the words to express what he was feeling and, once on the ice, Victor seemed so distant.

Even weirder, he started to hear Yurio’s voice in his head.

_“It’s a stupid story.” He was saying, glaring across the table at him from over a light lunch of sushi and rice._

This memory was from weeks ago, when they’d still been competing for Victor’s consideration.

_“Wha...what is?” Yuuri was responding with a startle, his mind still wandering along the topic of food._

_“That whole ‘language of figure skating’ thing?” Yuri Plisetsky even raised his fingers in sarcastic air quotes as he spoke. “Some reporter just made it up to get attention.”_

_“I…don’t think I get what you’re talking about.”_

_Yuri sighed with his characteristically annoyed growl. “That whole media thing about Victor ‘speaking in the language of figure skating.’ It’s stupid, like something for fangirls. What was that last article going on about that you said? “Victor Nikiforov doesn’t talk, he skates?” Or that his routines are like, some kind of secret code waiting for the right person to read them and understand him or whatever?”_

_“You don’t think that he…”_

_“No, dumbass. It’s not story time. It’s WIN time!”_

Yuuri looked up from where he stood near the boards to see Victor absent-mindedly taking a turn across the ice, a gentle smile on his lips. He immediately recognized the movements of course; a backwards skate flowing into a wide-armed stance that predicated maneuvering into a jump. But rather than pick up speed for the triple flip that should follow, he merely marked the time with three quarter-turns before toeing into a side-step. It was clearly the middle sequence to Victor’s “Stay Close to Me” routine; the very same routine that Yuuri had managed to unintentionally go viral with online when he could think of no other motivation than…Victor. 

How ironic.

But something instantly struck Yuuri very differently about watching Victor glide through the familiar motions this time. For some reason, the dance suddenly felt more like a plea; a supplication to an unfeeling world about how very lonely he truly was. Recalling Victor’s own words from the night before, Yuuri could see his need expressed in the way his brow furrowed and in how his body angled away from his own embrace; his right arm passing provocatively over his head as he stepped through it. But the tone still made him seem unreachable, no matter what it was he might otherwise be saying.

_“Victor Nikiforov only knows how to communicate in his routines.”_

Yurio was right, it _had_ been a dumb article. But unlike him, Yuuri wasn’t so convinced it was wrong.

He was starting to think that “Stay Close to Me” wasn’t just Victor’s prayer for someone to find him, it was a petition for that someone to prove themselves in spite of him. A demand to take up the challenge to both give him the love he desperately craved and to take it from him in return. Within its twists and acrobatic leaps of faith, Victor was telling a story of all the people who had left him behind but also how he was still looking out for the one person who would meet him there in the end. Someone he couldn’t yet see or feel but whom he just may have sensed on the horizon. The mistake that the reporters had made was in attributing all of this to Victor’s masterful skill in replicating deep emotion on the ice; his mock orange deception, never suspecting it might be perilously real. Yuuri was actually momentarily stunned at his own dawning realizations as he continued to observe the other man completing the steps. Victor Nikiforov was imploding.

He was losing everything he loved. His motivations, his ambitions, his ability to make his world into what he wanted of it. Victor’s life had become loss, and his frustration with it all was palpably present. It was there, in the movements of his body on the ice. And yet, there was still hope in him. Hope in wry smiles and teasing remarks, hope in the confused thoughts that plagued him after Yuuri had declined a commemorative photo at his side and then did what he did with his own routine just a short time later. Hope that had brought him all the way to Japan without a backward glance or a by your leave. Stay close to me…and I will stay close to you.

Could it be that Katsuki Yuuri was his inspiration?

“Hey? Yuuri? What’s going on?”

Yuuri choked, coughed, shook his head, and clawed his way back to himself. When he finally refocused, Victor was standing in front on him; arms crossed and his head tilted. 

“I’m fine!” He announced, his non sequitur a little too loud to sound completely honest.

“What were you thinking about?” Victor pried.

“Nothing!”

“Yuuri.”

“Uh…I was…. I guess…”

“If there is something you want to say, you can say it. About last night?”

“Wha…why do I think want to say anything about…”

“Because you haven’t been able to finish a complete sentence since breakfast.”

Yuuri could feel his face blush and his cheeks get hot. He hadn’t intended to make such a fool of himself this morning. Crashing and flailing out into the hallway in a desperate bid to avoid his mother’s questions, then racing back to his own room still half-naked and almost refusing to come out even after everyone else had assembled in the kitchen. Victor had, of course, been the image of decorum despite all the theatrics; emerging as his usual put-together genial self and filling in some of the broader details when directly asked. Yuuri, unfortunately, could still barely look anyone in the eye. And, as a result of the reminder of his on-the-spot embarrassment, which never resulted in fine moments for him, what he then blurted out was, “Do you really want to be with me?”

Surprisingly, Victor had the wherewithal to look slightly taken aback, though his smile was sympathetic. “Have I somehow given you the impression that I don’t?”

“No. I mean, I didn’t just mean, like…before…I mean _with_ me, with me.”

It was decidedly the most unpoetic moment in all of Yuuri’s brief romantic life. A perfect zenith of incompetent wording at the most inopportune time. Thankfully, Victor seemed to take Yuuri’s anxiety in stride.

“Yes, Yuuri. I want to. I want _you_. To be with you, for as long as you’ll have me.”

Yuuri fidgeted but fell silent; contemplating Victor’s easy and instant response. He felt as if his own answer should be just as simple and not filled with trepidation and second-guessing like he was doing right now. But nothing between his brain and his mouth ever seemed to work right. Why was it so hard to talk to him and state the obvious?! There was also no one else in the building right now, Yuuri was certain of that. No one else on the ice but the two of them, and there wouldn’t be anyone else until much later in the day when the skating classes started. Which meant that there was no one around to see what happened next. 

Had there been, they would have said that it was a sweet kiss, if a bit sloppy and unsure. The smaller man leaning in, balancing precariously on the edge of his skates, to reach upwards towards his taller companion. The other man then leaning down to gracefully accept the gesture before plying his lover’s mouth with the tip of his tongue. Very quickly, the interaction then grew heated as exchanges of hands, lips, and breath threatened to become visible in the cold, frosted, air. When Victor finally pulled away, it was to an unhappy whine in response.

“We’re done for today, I think.” He stated rather ambiguously, all the while he pushed back out into the rink. 

But Yuuri had already spent too long in his own head and was reading the other man in relation to everything chaotically parading though his mind; real Victor and imagined Victor once again colliding. Ultimately, he just wasn’t satisfied with where they had left things and if nothing else, he now knew that there were other ways to get a point across to Victor. 

Yuuri had an idea.

So, when his lover slid to a stop under the severe white lighting back at center ice, Yuuri suppressed a wan smirk and immediately followed him. But he didn’t simply go to him as Victor might anticipate. Instead, he went to the far edge of the rink and waited until Victor noticed he wasn’t at his side and turned to look for him. But before the other man could question his motives, Yuuri set off and began to dance a slow spiral around where Victor stood. Around once, and then again, lilting into his turns and spinning, over and over, as he closed his orbit ever further in smaller and smaller increments. He also watched as Victor Nikiforov went from confused to entranced over the span of several minutes; entirely unsure as to how to interpret the steps, the sinuous limbs stretching out, and the ever-decreasing distance that never quite reached him. Yuuri then decided on his biggest gamble to date and prayed he wasn’t about to monumentally misjudge his position and flatten himself completely.

 _Stay Close to Me_. He began the routine from memory but instead of making use of the entire stage afforded him (as Victor’s choreography tended to), Yuuri intentionally limited himself to falling ever closer towards the center of the universe where Victor still stood. The back-step, his arms raised high into the air as he moved into a spin, his left foot raised into the turn, and then the triple toe-loop. 

He landed it! 

Around he went again.

But he couldn’t get complacent now and the shorter and shorter distance was about to become a real challenge. Next was the combination jump, a triple and then a double flip. And if he had planned them correctly, Yuuri believed that he could end the last maneuver with a descent and a glissade directly into Victor’s arms. But would he see what was coming? Would he understand what Yuuri was saying? Did he know?

There was nowhere to go but forward.

Yuuri took a deep breath, increased his speed, turned, and made the jump. _Shit! No!_ He’d over-rotated it again. He came down hard, wobbled, braced for the spin, and then…

…everything had already stopped and the world was upright. Instead of face-first on the ice, Yuuri found himself safely in Victor’s hold: his arms around his midsection where the older man had caught him mid-stumble. Still trying to catch his breath, Yuuri chanced an upward glance and saw there on Victor’s face an unreadable expression. Pensive but profoundly moved, guarded but enthralled, as though he had just been revealed to be vulnerable and raw without any intent to admit to the truth of it. 

“How…how was that?” 

“Yuuri? What are you doing?” Victor’s voice was so unexpectedly hoarse and quiet.

“Whatever you ask of me, Victor.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hours later, Yuuri had the same thought.

Victor seemed troubled; and only partially so because he was hunched over one his skates with a screwdriver and a string of curses trying to fix an off-kilter rivet. They hadn’t said much to each other over the course of the late afternoon and into the evening, and Yuuri was beginning to worry that he had done something wrong. Maybe the stunt on the ice hadn’t been such a good idea after all. It would be just like him too! Messing up the beginnings of his first real, and desperately wanted, relationship with none other than the one man he’d been pining for since he was a teenager by fumbling his way through an over-wrought romantic gesture. Even the rest of his family seemed to sense that something was off and had left them alone in the back sitting-room.

Yuuri worried at a thread on his sock. “Victor?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you ok?”

“Yes, it’s just this eyelet. The edge keeps turning up and cutting the lace. I keep trying to bend it back down but I’m not having much luck.”

“I meant about earlier today. You seem…bothered.”

A pause, screwdriver still in hand but hovering thoughtfully over the offending skate.

“Oh, no Yuuri.” He replied softly. “I’m not bothered. That was a very beautiful thing you did.”

“And I mean it, you know.” He stated earnestly.

“I know you do.”

“But…you’re not convinced?”

Victor sighed and set the boot aside as he straightened and stretched his lower back. “It’s not that, love. It’s…I’m sorry. I’ve just been thinking about a lot.”

“Like what? Victor, you can tell me.” Yuuri leaned in emphatically. “I mean, I get that I’m not the most articulate person at times and I have a habit of just, kind of, babbling my feelings all over the place but I can tell there’s something on your mind. You want me to be open about it; you can too.”

Another pause. 

“I’m…not sure this is a good idea.” 

His tone made the meaning clear and it wasn’t the event of their current conversation he was referring to. The impact hit Yuuri like a meteor to the gut but strangely, he’d been prepared for something like this. In fact, he’d been thinking about what Victor had told him the night before for hours. The words still momentarily sent him reeling but he had a comeback at the ready.

“Because you don’t think you deserve it?”

Now, Victor had to admit, of all the things he expected out of Yuuri, this particular moment of insightful emotional genius was not one of them. He knew that he wasn’t the most competent person when it came to feelings but he did think he was better at hiding his inadequacies than this! As a result, Victor was only able to stare back at him silently in response. 

“That’s it isn’t it?” His lover continued. “You think that eventually you’re going to tell me something that’s so bad I won’t want you. You think that it’s better if we break it off now before I leave later. That it’ll just hurt worse then so, make it hurt now.”

 _Make it hurt now_.

Victor’s face contorted and for a moment Yuuri panicked, thinking that he might start to cry. When he didn’t and only continued to glare down at his own hands did Yuuri continue. 

“I’ve been there Victor. I mean, look at me! I’m a mess half the time when things are going perfectly fine! And then I turn into a wreck for no reason! That’s how I got myself into this whole Qualifier situation to begin with. It’s all terrible and I’m terrible and you’re terrible and we’ll… just be terrible together! There’s nothing you could say that would change my mind. I get that you hate yourself because of what you think you’ve done. But you don’t have to.”

He was out of breath again. And Victor wouldn’t look up.

He was shaking.

“You know what I _really_ hate, Yuuri?” His voice was strange: a low timbre mixed with the thick honey of his accent poured over pain and self-loathing. “You want to know what I hate more than anything in this world?”

Yuuri nodded, cautiously and without rancor. “Tell me.”

It felt precipitous and Yuuri was already gritting his teeth. This would be a confession. This would be meaningful. Victor was finally going to reveal something of himself that no other person would ever see again!

“Olives.”

_Wait. What?_

“I…. uh…you hate…ok.” The bewilderment was clear on Yuuri’s face as he mumbled through a non-response.

Still without making eye-contact, Victor went on. “You know the ones they put in cocktails at parties? I _hate_ them. My stomach turns whenever I so much as smell one. Or see them. Floating there on their little swords, bouncing around in the glass while people smile and talk and wave their drinks around. They shouldn’t exist. I wish they didn’t.”

Yuuri honestly didn’t know what to say. It was such a starkly unexpected image and yet so completely benign. A cocktail olive, seriously? Unless, of course, it wasn’t an olive that Victor was referring to. Not an actual one, anyway. He watched the play of emotions flicker across his lover’s face and move through his shoulders and into his hands. It was starting to make more and more sense the longer Yuuri observed him. Victor really did speak a different language.

“I can sometimes still taste them.” Victor had already dropped to a hurt whisper. “The way _he_ would press them to my lips and say, ‘open up, that’s a good boy.’ His voice always sounded like he was just teasing, just making a harmless joke, but he wasn’t. He never was. Swirling those olives in his glass with a wink, right there in public and yet no one saw anything. Plucking it out to push it into my mouth and then laughing when I tried to spit it out. But that’s how it started.”

With the utmost care, Yuuri reached one hand out to tentatively lay his fingers onto Victor’s knee. There were a few cushions and pillows where they sat together on the floor, but neither had dispensed with any; favoring instead to sit on the bare bamboo planks just a few feet apart. Even from such light contact, Yuuri could feel Victor trembling; overcome.

“Victor?” He called to him softly. “He’s gone now. No one will ever do that to you again. It’s not possible.”

“Even after he was accused, even after the lawyers got involved, he would walk past me at every party. Brush up to me. Then, he would always touch my hair. Play with the ends and twist it around his finger. Whisper things in my ear. Olives. He smelled like those _olives_.”

“Wha…what did you do? Did you tell Coach Yakov?”

“No.”

“You never said anything?”

“There was nothing to say. I was…17, maybe. No one was listening. There was really only one thing I could do.”

“What?” 

“I cut my hair off. So he couldn’t touch it anymore.”

The mental picture of Victor, young and demoralized, with a rusted scissors in one hand and the length of his hair wrapped around the other came immediately to Yuuri’s mind and it was as heartbreaking as the vision before him now. Folded in on his own body; desperate to keep the terrors away and yet seeking contact and connection at the same time, Victor was a paradox of his own making. The arms around himself, the turn away from the audience in the triple toe-loop, the bent spiral spin into a backwards slide… _Stay Close to Me_.

With as much gentleness as he could conjure up, Katsuki Yuuri slowly rose up onto his haunches and closed the last small measure of distance between himself and his lover; unmooring Victor as he boldly climbed onto him and came to rest sitting in his lap with both arms around his neck. There was a brief moment of surprise before he felt the older man begin to relax beneath his weight. And he held him there; Victor’s face pressed into his chest as Yuuri’s fingertips stroked the back of his neck. After a few long moments, Yuuri leaned down to rest his lips into the top of Victor’s head. 

“May _I_?” He asked, bringing tender hands up the sides of the older man’s neck to just below the short fringe of his hair.

Victor chuffed through an unseen smile. “Of course _you_ can, Yuuri.”

Carding through thick silver locks, Yuuri lead the way into a new routine and a new way of thinking.

“You’re beautiful, Victor. You’ve always been beautiful. But I don’t think you’ve ever really heard it. Not in the way that you need to.” He again whispered into Victor’s bowed head. “And I can think of only one way to tell you so that you’ll really understand.”

“Oh?” Muffled somewhere in Yuuri’s shirt.

“Yeah. Come with me.”


	2. Mock Olive - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now, the exciting conclusion to our Fool’s Gold triptych! – Nas

**PART II**

Yuuri led and Victor followed. 

Down the hallway, past the sliding doors to other rooms, other conversations, to the familiar threshold of the old banquet space that now served as a temporary domicile. Victor’s bedroom was dark; quiet in the way that only well-lived-in places could be while they waited for life and loud voices to return. Makkachin trotted past them, happy to be free to wander but even happier to have so many willing hands to seek out with ear scratches, treats, and leftover dinner. On his way to do so however, he stopped, regarded the two of them with a brief wag and then set off towards the kitchen once more. Yuuri smiled. 

“I guess someone knows where it’s at right now.”

Victor stared back at him curiously, still unsure as to how he should take all this in. Yuuri’s sudden directive and confidence, the thoughtful and meditative way that he brought them both into the room, the attentiveness paid to every detail as he closed the door and muffled the base of it with the rug. Tentatively, Victor sat down at the edge of the bed as Yuuri turned and regarded him with another devastatingly bright smile.

“Victor? Do you believe in love at first sight?”

It was an oddly philosophical question for the younger man but, as Victor guessed that this was all leading somewhere eventually, decided to answer it sincerely.

“Yes.”

Yuuri seemed astonished. “Really?”

“There are many different kinds of love, Yuuri.” Came the somewhat somber reply. “Surely you’ve realized that's been the point of this all along?” 

Yuuri squinted with a thoughtful upturn to his nose, mulling over their skating routines and his assignment to _Eros_ as well as the dual nature of the slow dance they had both engaged in for weeks; literally and figuratively as it were. As he did so, subconsciously pressing his chin downwards into his collar, Victor continued wistfully. 

“But love at first sight is a strange kind of love, you know? It's only temporary, barely fleeting. It can't stay for very long due to its nature.” 

“It's… nature?”

Victor nodded. “It must always give way to something else because love like that is about possibility, about everything you imagine could happen. It's a merging of fantasy and reality in one fell swoop that can knock the breath right out of you. We always want to hold on to it, to that giddy, uncertain, feeling, but it has to transform. You can’t stay forever in chance. But I've seen it become...many things. After that, I mean. Attraction. Romantic infatuation. Obsession.” 

“Agape and Eros?”

“Yes, of course.” Victor smiled despite himself. “But, if I may ask, Yuuri, what are you getting at?”

“It’s funny that you should mention that whole fantasy and reality thing.” Yuuri replied, picking idly at his nails. He then seemed to contemplate the rest of his answer for a time before finally toeing at the floor and responding. “Because I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you. Even though I’d never met you. Like you said, I didn’t _know you_. But it was also at a time in my life where anything felt possible. Like I could do anything or go anywhere. That’s a feeling I haven’t had in a really long time.” He looked up, pointedly, at his lover and took a deep breath. “But I do now. I do tonight. It’s like love at first sight, Victor. The first time I’m actually _seeing you_.”

Victor felt his throat grow tight. Yuuri’s natural earnestness wasn’t helping the fragile vial he could feel breaking in his chest. He had already told him things he hadn’t told anyone else, hadn’t trusted with anyone else. But the truth of it was that he hadn’t really told Yuuri about it to unburden himself. Rather, if he was being honest, he had only given voice to some of the worst aspects of his past so that he would finally scare him away. A spectacular failure now if there ever was one. But, for the first time, Victor didn’t mind the defeat.

“So…what now then?” Victor’s voice was barely above a whisper, his fingers digging almost nervously into the bedclothes. He felt vulnerable and it was an emotion he greatly despised.

“Well,” Yuuri gave him a coy smirk. “Now, we explore that possibility. Right? See what it becomes?”

Victor had to admit his confusion but the way that Yuuri was now approaching him silenced any agitation that may have arisen. Slow, almost sultry, he stalked across the room until he stopped just short of where the older man was still sitting; a look of predatory ingenuity in his eyes. It was something about Yuuri that Victor was quickly learning; that he could be both innocent and volatile, naïve and self-assured. Simultaneously virtuous and carnal. And that there was no telling which one would surface at any given time! If nothing else though, he obviously had a plan.

Careful, as though not to disturb the quiet ambiance, Yuuri then reached up to begin undoing the buttons of Victor’s shirt; gently grazing his fingertips over the warm skin be found beneath as he did. Victor glanced down reflexively but then turned his face back up to meet his lover’s eyes with the pinched demeanor of responsibility.

“Yuuri.” He stated, bringing his hands up to halt the ones making their way down his chest. “It’s too soon for this again. You haven’t had enough time to recover yet. I…I would only hurt you.”

But the other man only chuffed lightly in amusement before his blithely spoken comment froze Victor solid. 

“That’s why you’re not having me tonight.” He then leaned in and pecked a playful kiss onto the tip of Victor’s nose. “I’m going to have you.”

Victor Nikiforov very much wished that the proverbial lights he was seeing up ahead did not mean he was about to encounter a truck.

“What?”

“Unless, of course, you don’t want to.” Yuuri added, more than a little concerned about the stunned expression creeping across Victor’s face. “You can say ‘no,’ Victor, you know that right? But if you’re ok with it, with me, I really want to touch you. Taste you. Maybe tease you a little.”

Victor shivered at the tender touches to his jaw and neck, chewing on his bottom lip as Yuuri’s voice drifted from his right ear to his left. “I want to get you excited. I want to see you want me. And then...” He hesitated, either out of his inexperience with this kind of talk or out of embarrassment for what he intended to ask for. “Make you come. In whatever way you want to.”

Victor let out a slow breath and turned his head into his lover’s palm. Yuuri was looking to take care of him; the prospect of which was delightfully endearing. But Victor wanted to hear more. “I see. And how do you think you’re going to do that, Yuuri?”

Yuuri couldn’t stop the blush that colored his cheeks, but he took Victor’s playful words and solicitous posture for the lover’s game it was. Climbing onto the older man’s lap, he settled against his hips and brought his chin down onto Victor’s shoulder so that he might continue their exchange as quietly, and as intimately, as possible. 

“Well.” He breathed. “I was going to start by undressing you. Find all the places you like to be touched. See if I can make you moan. Maybe use my mouth.”

Then Victor surprised him in return. “Do you want to take me, Yuuri?”

“I…uh…do you want me to?” Once again, Yuuri’s intentions and his brain had ceased adequately working together. Victor couldn’t help but find his response to be interminably cute, however.

“If I say that I do? That I want you inside me. What then?”

“Then I’d…try?”

Victor leaned back. “Try?”

“I’ve never done it the…uh…the other way around.”

Victor immediately seemed uncertain, almost reticent, and it worried Yuuri that he might be once again digging himself into a hole of his own design. Victor already knew he was inexperienced, despite the previous night’s passion, but what if his ignorance turned out to be too much? What if Victor refused him, not out of a lack of desire, but out of a sense of accountability? Or worse, guilt.

“But!” He chirped, before his lover could gain any traction with his worries. “I want to…if…if you do.” He paused to watch the myriad emotions work their way out of the depths of Victor’s mind to appear in the furrow of his brow before continuing. “Victor?”

He looked up, casually tightening his hold around Yuuri’s waist. “Will you show me? I mean, teach me what to do? What you like?”

The memory of their first meeting played over and over again in Victor’s head. Yuuri, wild and unbelievably drunk, sidling up to him at the Grand Prix after-party. The shine of alcohol and undisputed joy in his eyes as he threw his arms around him and loudly announced the very ill-conceived dance-off. How Victor had debated whether or not to do it but, despite himself, had been dragged into what turned out to be a fantastically fun evening. Yurio had sworn at him, of course, and Chris had ended up mostly naked on a pole (typical) but Victor had never let go of the image of Katsuki Yuuri spinning around him, holding onto him, laughing into his shoulder…touching his cheek. It was the only time in recent memory, that Victor could recall, where the sound of olives, clinking in their glasses, hadn’t hurt. 

And here Yuuri was now, again, ever-so-gently caressing his face with that same exuberant smile he always seemed to have whenever they were close.

That fragile vial was crumbling.

Tipping his head back in a desperate bid to stop the tears in his eyes, Victor agreed with a soft murmur. Honestly, he wasn’t sure what to expect from this but just the fact that Yuuri still wanted him was enough. He would enjoy whatever his lover did with him. He knew that much. So, when Yuuri gently guided him onto his back nearer to the head of the bed, he went willingly. When his lover then set back to work on removing his shirt again, he didn’t stop him.

In fact, Yuuri made rather efficient work of all of Victor’s clothes, as well as his own; stripping him down with virtually no distractions or pauses to explore further. It was all a little disconcerting but seeing as Victor actually had very few qualms about being naked (privately or even semi-publicly as the case may be), it did nothing to prevent him from stretching out and waiting for whatever Yuuri had in mind next as he finished discarding his pants and his glasses. 

The first touch came, unexpectedly, to his forehead. A single, tentative, fingertip running over the ridge of his eyebrow, to his temple, and then down the curve of his jaw until it came to rest just beneath his chin. Victor noticed at this point that Yuuri seemed to have a kind of fascination with touching his face. Even when they kissed, Yuuri had a habit of bringing his hands up to his cheek to hold him and for a brief moment, Victor wondered if it had something to do with the way his lover was constantly searching his eyes. As though he was always on the lookout for a sea-change. 

The kiss that followed this time, however, was to his collarbone and Victor watched with a kind of wondrous fascination as Yuuri moved to his chest and then to his abdomen and then ever lower. When it became obvious what his lover was intent on doing, Victor sighed and relaxed; happy to be in trustworthy hands for a while. Yuuri explored him cautiously, and it though he had some experience with this much at least, it was a bit clumsy. 

Victor did not care in the slightest.

When he felt Yuuri’s mouth close over him and draw harshly upwards, he moaned appreciatively. But Victor also cursed at himself. He had been feeling erratic and unsettled all day, and all of that pent-up emotion was quickly leading into a rather explosive arousal. It was foolish how fast he had forgotten that his excitement was often deeply entangled with his emotions; and the more unstable he felt, the more wanton he became. It had been, perhaps, a mere minute but already he felt stretched almost to pain and was getting harder in his lover’s mouth than he remembered ever being before. He then felt the whine threatening at the back of his throat. It was much too soon. Finishing like this would be a humiliation.

Yuuri, however, continued to work Victor into a near frenzy with brash enthusiasm, openly delighting in the sounds he was more and more able to pull from the man beneath him. He sucked and mouthed at the organ presented to him, all the while experimenting with his tongue in some of the ways he remembered his lover doing for him the night before. He had no doubt that Victor wanted, even needed, him. He was throbbing insistently in his mouth and panting out a string of nonsensical words that seemed to beg Yuuri for more at the same time imploring him to stop. Before Victor could actually say anything to that effect though, the younger man suddenly sat up. For a moment, he only observed as Victor tried to slow his breathing and calm himself a little; caressing his side gently before speaking up.

“Victor?” He called softly. 

“Yes, Yuuri?” Muttered from somewhere beneath Victor’s arms, thrown over his face to hide his abashed state.

“Do you trust me?”

Victor raised his forearm and eyed the smiling Yuuri with an inquisitive look. “Yes?”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Ok.” It was more of a nod and mischievous grin than an answer but then Yuuri surprised him again. “Hand me that bottle.”

“That…what?”

Yuuri nodded towards the bedside table and Victor suddenly understood. It took him a flustered second to wrestle with the drawer, fish around blindly inside, and produce the item he knew his lover was referring to: a small, plastic, container with a clip at the top and some worn lavender writing. He passed it wordlessly over. Yuuri turned it over in his hands a few times while carefully inspecting the front label. Apparently satisfied with what he read, Victor watched as he flipped it open and squeezed out a generous amount onto his hand.

“Alright, Victor. Tell me what to do.”

For a moment, he was rendered virtually speechless. This was a Yuuri he only ever saw on the ice. Serene. Confident. With a maturity that belied his years. This wasn’t the Yuuri who fantasized about katsudon or panicked over Instagram posts, nor was it the Yuuri who hid in the back of the stands so that Yurio couldn’t yell at him on the way to warm-up. This was the Yuuri who amazed him every moment of every day; in ways he was quickly growing addicted to. 

Swallowing just enough to get his voice to work, Victor made a vague motion over his chest and parted his thighs. “Get me wet.” He whispered. “Get me ready for you. But, do it slowly. Let me work my way up to you.”

When the first finger touched him, Victor tightened but then relaxed; closing his eyes for really no other reason than that he was worried that if he watched Yuuri prepare him, it would take him right over the edge without further contact. Unfortunately, the darkness and unpredictability were far worse. Deprived of sight and surrounded only by the infinite spaces of his own mind stretching out beyond his eyelids, Victor descended into madness.

The first movement, slim and easy, nearly sent him into a fit. He arched, fearful of crying out. It was ridiculous, and Victor felt ridiculous, but before he could regain his bearings, a second finger joined the first. He stuttered and moaned, and still couldn’t bear to open his eyes. The motion paused.

“Do you need me to stop?”

“N..No, my love. I…I can take it.”

Yuuri didn’t immediately continue. “This isn’t about taking it, Victor.”

The older man huffed with a benign laugh. “Yuuri, this is not my first time.”

“Yes, it is.”

He could have screamed at the universe. How dare it do this to him. How dare it take beautiful things and mask them behind impenetrable forms. How dare it rob him of the occult senses he needed to discern what lay beneath the impassive faces that wandered through his life. Or to know which olives in which glasses to shy away from. When the mock orange bloomed it must be spring, but the mock cherry only came by late in summer. But neither of them giving away their true natures until the admirer leaned in to grasp the petals in their own hands. Named for what they were not, they could be anything in secret.

Anything.

And everything.

“Curl your fingers.” He instructed, breathless. “Just a little.”

When Yuuri did so, it was all Victor could do not to shout his reaction or twist away from the intensity of what he felt. When his lover’s opposite hand then stole up to try and stroke him further, Victor batted it away. 

“No, don’t.” He groaned. “I’ll come.” 

Yuuri complied without complaint. “What now?”

“Stretch me…but…not too much. I want to feel it when you… when you take me.” 

Victor welcomed the fire that ignited at his core and the burn that accompanied it wherever his lover moved to pleasure him. Helpless words tumbled out faster and faster, in response to the sensations that wracked him. The things that he said, however, made the younger man blush. 

Victor was solicitous and imploring; telling his lover to control him and dominate him. Begging Yuuri to taste him, savor him, and remember all of it every time he dared to step out onto the ice. He begged for mercy and then gave no quarter, switching effortlessly between appeals to Yuuri’s love and tenderness and demands to be held down and fucked without pity. For a time, Yuuri wasn’t entirely sure if Victor knew what he was saying but desire had none-the-less laid him bare. And it was extraordinary.

Yuuri was being as careful as he could manage. Unfortunately, as the seconds ticked by, it was becoming clear that he was not unaffected by Victors whimpers and pleas, nor by the instinctual undulations moving down his spine. Yuuri began to move faster, pressuring his lover to open up to him quickly. But the feeling Victor truly craved lay just out of reach; a short distance away, and his lover could give it to him if he would…

“Yuuri…please…I need…just a…just a little deeper…. I’m going to…”

A palm slamming into the pillow next to Victor’s head startled him so much that he finally broke free of himself; his eyes snapping open to see Yuuri rising up and covering him. He didn’t even have enough time to register the shift in his situation as a strong hand went under his knee and the heat of his lover’s body swiftly surrounded him. It wasn’t the most graceful movement Yuuri had ever made, and there was a certain amount of ungainliness to it, but suddenly Victor was pinned; pressed into the mattress by the weight above him. Without further preamble, his lover slid into him with a single, hard, thrust.

Victor lost his breath and his voice all at once, his shocked eyes going wide as he reflexively grabbed onto Yuuri’s hips. It had been a long time since he’d been in this particular position and the immediate, deep, rhythm his lover set off on left him gasping for air and completely unable to right himself. He moved on him zealously; thrusting with uncharacteristic abandon as Victor struggled to regain footing. This was no tender love-making on a cold night. This was Yuuri fucking him delirious until he ripped apart from the inside. So deep inside.

The cry that then erupted from Victor was one-part terror, two-parts ardent despair and passionate desolation. It was too much and not enough. Yuuri held him forcefully still when he tried to thrash, rolling his thrusts to take him more fully; sliding between Victor’s thighs until he had no recourse but to submit and take every stroke given to him. He could feel every inch of the solid length moving against his sensitive inner skin, every instant wherein Yuuri’s hips met his, every part of the mouth and teeth nipping at his throat as his lover drove into him again and again. Yuuri seemed to have gone mad and it was taking him apart in ways Victor had never thought possible. 

“Yu…Yuuri…YES…pleaseOHgod…” Victor’s face contorted into a visage of agony. He was breathing so hard he could barely speak, but what he could get out let Yuuri know that they would rise out of the depths together this time. “Aah…. I…I can’t…Yuuri I can’t take it…. I’m so…I’m going to…”

Victor would never forget the sound of Yuuri’s voice afterwards; the hot breath in his ear as he growled the words. “Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you. You know I will. Let me show you what I would do for you, Victor…”

_Stay Close to Me_

Victor sobbed out loud, throwing his head and kneading his fingers into his lover’s back. “Hold me, Yuuri.” He keened. “Be here when I come back to myself.”

He was sure he caught a grin. 

But the next thrust broke him and Victor screamed, muting it only slightly by pushing his face against his lover’s neck as he did. Yuuri’s abdomen was gliding over him, giving him that last amount of friction he needed as the younger man’s thrusts sent him to the other side; pounding into him without reservation, until the world vanished into a great expanse of nothingness. Victor was as a shattering of glass; a nova burst in a field of dying stars as pleasure seared through him so completely that the pain of his disintegration was a pittance against the ecstasy of that final union of souls. Even though it hurt, even as his muscles seized and cramped, Victor wrapped his arms around his lover, tightened his heels across his back, and came. Howling his salvation for any penitent to hear, he gave up his essence, and his torment, to the only confessor who could absolve him.

In the midst of it all, Victor felt the rhythm inside of him stumble. The powerful thrusts faltered and changed as his body tightened down and involuntarily spasmed. He was jolted hard once, and then again, before a pair of sweat-slicked hands wrenched his hips down and instantly stilled. Yuuri didn’t cry out as he had before but instead spilled himself with a tense, rumbling, moan all the while sure to keep Victor bound beneath him as he emptied his passion into his lover’s willing body. But Victor also clung to him in return, and together they were ruined, transfigured, and remade.

As the wave crested and finally passed, neither found that they could move. But mindful of the pressure Victor might be under, Yuuri carefully slipped free of him before settling down still cradled in the older man’s embrace. He felt as though he should ask his lover if he was alright, given the unseeing, awe-struck, stare he had directed towards the ceiling while trying to catch his breath. Yuuri turned his head up to rest his chin on Victor’s sternum.

“Hey.” He said. “I’m here.”

Slowly, Victor finally blinked and tilted his head down to see his lover’s reddened face. “Yes you are.” He replied, casually smoothing a few errant locks of hair out of Yuuri’s eyes. “Thank you, Yuuri.”

“Hn. You don’t have to thank me, Victor. I just wanted to do it right.”

“Well…for your first time, so to speak…. I’d say…yes.”

“Are you ok?”

“I am more than ok, my love. So much more than that. You’ve given me back something I… thought I had lost.”

“Oh? What’s that.”

“Svet ochei moih.” (The light of my eyes).

Yuuri didn’t speak Russian but he knew that whenever Victor did around him, it was because he did not have the words in English, or any other language, to say what he needed to. And whatever this was, it meant more to him, spoken in his mother tongue, than anything else he had ever said. He could see it in the glimmer of unshed tears at the corners of his eyes and in the slight quiver in the vowels at the end. It wasn’t a question of a literal translation; Yuuri knew it was about the feel of the words, the sounds, and the quiet spaces in between them. He laid his cheek against Victor’s heartbeat and let his eyes drift shut with a contented sigh.

“Don’t be afraid, Victor.” He said, almost too inaudible for his lover to hear. “I’ll never let you go. When you look back, I’ll always be there waiting for you.”

The heart beneath him fluttered.

“I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Notes: The phrase Victor uses at the end here is both an older term of endearment for a male loved one and a comment on his own emotional state. I am intentionally leaving his meaning somewhat ambiguous because I think the scene is more powerful that way.)


End file.
